


Learning to Breathe

by shipshape_sheep



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: A Rom Com but Also Kind of Phantom of the Opera, Cuddling, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Mutually Annoying Neighbors to Lovers, Oops We Accidentally Formed a Loving and Supportive Relationship, Self Care and Talking About Feelings, composer!Kylo, yogateacher!Rey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-07-24 00:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16169627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipshape_sheep/pseuds/shipshape_sheep
Summary: Rey moves into a new apartment in the city to pursue her dream of being a yoga teacher. Every night, the grumpy composer who lives above her keeps her up with his loud, annoying music. One rainy night, she stomps upstairs to give him a piece of her mind...





	1. Chapter 1

_I guess that's everything._

Rey stood with her hands on her hips, staring down at the half-dozen boxes scattered on the bare wooden floor. Somehow her few belongings had filled up her whole dorm, but here, in her new, tiny studio apartment, they took up no space at all. A futon, a set of chipped dishes, a few stacks of paperback books, a radio...and not much else. Every item attached to her name had fit into the back of her scuffed hatchback. This flat was the smallest floor model the complex offered, but it seemed cavernous. Lonely.  
Rey sat down on the floor, leaned back against a laundry bag stuffed with clothes, and let out a heavy sigh. Just last night, Rey had been in Finn's warm, overstuffed house, drinking wine and playing board games, watching Poe and Rose get way too competitive over Monopoly. The three of them had banded together to surprise Rey with a party in honor of her new job as a yoga teacher and her move to the big city. They went all out—a banner, pointy hats, a cheese tray. Her best friends. Growing up in the orphanage, she never thought she would find friends like that, never know such sweet and easy laughter. 

_Stop being a baby._

They were just a few hours' drive away. And this was a great job, a fresh start. Rey got up, stretched her back, and started unpacking. Halfway through a box of pots and pans, a sudden bolt of panic shot through her. She couldn't believe she had almost forgotten her most precious belonging--she never let it out of her sight.

Rey scrambled out to the parking lot. Of course, her yoga mat was still in the passenger seat of her car—who would steal a yoga mat?--but just looking at its familiar bright pattern of orange lotus blossoms on pale turquoise put her at ease. She had also forgotten a fairly heavy box of random kitchen junk wedged under the seat. She hefted both items and trudged back towards her apartment, wondering how she was going to manage to wedge the door open and slip through with her arms full.

Just in time, a man strode up to the door. She could only see him from the back—tall, lanky, with unkempt dark hair sticking out in random whorls and curls. He wore ratty flannel pajama bottoms and a black t-shirt faded to patchy gray.

“Excuse me! Sir! Would you mind getting the door?”

She hustled faster, almost losing her grip on the cardboard box. She felt a twinge of annoyance as the man slipped through the door without turning back towards her. She was absolutely certain he could hear her.

“Sir! If you wouldn't mind--”

The door slammed in her face. Rey rolled her eyes, shifted the heavy load to one arm, and elbowed her way inside. The man was loping up the stairwell to the second floor. She briefly considered shouting something sarcastic up at him. As he turned the corner, she saw a glimpse of his face, pale and drawn. He was younger than she would have guessed from his hunched posture—her age—with eyes so dark they were nearly black. A faded purple scar bisected the angles of his face.

Those black eyes fixed on her for a moment, so empty and cold and emotionless that goosebumps broke out on her arms and her sarcastic quip caught in her throat. Then he disappeared up the stairs.

“Nice welcome,” she muttered to herself.

It took her less than an hour to put away her few belongings. She spent the rest of the day stretching and meditating, working out the tension in her back from lugging around heavy boxes and preparing mentally for her class the next morning. The apartment's bare white walls still looked stark. She tried to mentally reframe the bareness as quaint simplicity. As night fell, she brewed herself a cup of chamomile tea and settled in with a paperback. Back in the dorm, she would have waited until she was absolutely certain no one was around before she read a book with a shirtless pirate on the front. Here, totally alone, she still felt a twinge of embarrassment as she read a graphic depiction of a “heaving bosom.”  
She fell asleep on the creaky futon. She was used to the constant dull clamor of the dorms, so the city's noise didn't phase her—she drifted off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

A scream jarred her awake.

Or, she thought it was a scream—a high, keening, otherworldly noise, wavering with horror and sorrow. She sat frozen in bed, her hands knotted in the blankets, her heart pounding. The noise swelled up again, a piercing, accusatory wail.  
But it wasn't a human voice. It was some kind of...instrument? A synthesizer, something electronic?  
The shriek leveled off into a low, thrumming sound, like a wounded heartbeat. Rey struggled to manage her own racing pulse. The sound had unleashed something deep inside her, something wild and frightened that she thought she had locked away, but was now galloping unrestrained through her nerves. She noticed the light fixture on the ceiling was rattling. The sounds were coming from just above her. 

Was it—music? 

The “voice” spiraled up again, ghostly, mournful. Fragments of melody wandered in and out of a barren, droning soundscape. It was a song of bitterness and pain and grief. Sometimes the song trailed off into silence for full minutes only to shiver back into tortured life. Rey listened, stricken, unable to move. 

Something trickled down the side of her face. Startled, she brushed it away with the heel of her hand. A tear. More hot tears stung the corners of her eyes.

She didn't get much sleep that night.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey squinted into the morning sunlight streaming through the apartment's one narrow window as she forced herself to chew a granola bar that tasted like wood chips. She would have to go grocery shopping later that day, just another in a long list of tasks that lay ahead. Her head pounded. She had gotten maybe three or four hours of sleep. When she envisioned her first day on the job, she imagined floating into the studio like a calm, collected, radiant goddess. This morning, she felt more like some kind of underground goblin forced out of a burrow. She tried to find some comfort in the ritual of packing her yoga bag—foam block, water bottle, towel, her lucky mat. 

She took the bus to work, mentally cursing the Mystery Musician the whole time, then chiding herself for having such a negative mindset, then promptly going back to cursing.

When she toured the building the first time several weeks ago, the rec center manager showed her the studio where she would hold her sessions. It had seemed impossibly spacious and chic—glowingly polished wooden floors, wall-to-wall mirrors, and a high sloped white ceiling with skylights that let in golden beams. Now, arriving on this dull, overcast morning, the studio's spaciousness made her feel very small. Dark clouds shifted in the skylights. As Rey spread out her mat and went through a few warm-up stretches, the first raindrops began to spatter before becoming a low, steady murmur.

She put on her sunniest smile as the first of her students filed into the room. On Mondays and  
Wednesdays, she taught a class especially for older or “non-traditional” students who wanted a slower-paced, more casual practice. She treasured these courses, where people came to practice yoga for the pure pleasure of movement and deep breathing, not as a status symbol or a way to show superiority. 

Today, however, the new class was slow to warm to her. They seemed hesitant to accidentally embarrass themselves and didn't chuckle at any of her attempts at light-hearted jokes. Rey tried to focus on the practice, but as the session went on, self-doubt overtook her. Was she doing something wrong? Intimidating the students, making them afraid to try? Was she a bad teacher? By the time the class was over, Rey kept a cheerful smile on her face as she waved goodbye to her pupils, but her chest felt tight. She knew she would probably tear up as soon as she got home. As she stuffed her equipment back into her bag, she made the decision to skip the grocery store and pick up a burrito on the way home. It would be a waste of money, but she just didn't have the energy to walk through the aisles, trying to bottle up her sadness and discouragement.

She tried to blame it on her sleepless night, but deep down, she chided herself for being so fragile. This was the dream she had fought so hard to achieve, after all. Maybe she just didn't have the grit to stick it out.

Her mood was so desperately gloomy that, at first, she didn't even notice Finn waving gleefully at her from the sidewalk as she exited the rec center.

“Finn?!” She ran over to her friend and flung her arms around him.

“Woah, be careful!” he said, laughing. He lifted two canvas grocery bags. “I'm holding some housewarming presents.”

Rey could see a bottle of wine, a box of pasta, and fresh produce like apples and celery sticking out of the bag. Groceries. “Oh, my god. You're a lifesaver!” After a bit of debate, she managed to get Finn to let her carry one of the bags of groceries as they headed towards his car.

“You didn't have to drive all the way up here,” Rey said, buckling her seatbelt. She grinned, but her voice wobbled on the edge of tears. Her entire mood had flipped upside down, from lonely and depressed to absolutely elated, in a manner of seconds. It still amazed her, even after all these years, that she could have ever found a friend like Finn. “Especially after throwing me a whole going away party. It's so kind of you.”

“Poe wanted to come, but he had a conference today. He picked out the wine and the candy bars.” Poe was an aerospace engineer, and Finn's fiance. “Now, are you going to tell me why you looked like the whole world was on your shoulders when you walked out of that yoga studio?”

Rey tried to explain her moving-in blues as they headed back to her apartment and put away the groceries. She sat in the kitchentte sipping a giant mug of tea—her favorite, ginger and cardamom, courtesy of Finn—as Finn made an extra-large batch of pasta, enough so they could eat together and she would still have leftovers the next day.

“And I got maybe fifteen seconds of decent sleep last night,” Rey exaggerated. Her eyes unconsciously rolled towards the ceiling, as if the Mystery Musician were lurking up there, scowling down at them. “Somebody was blasting some kind of bizarre music.”

“Music?” Finn said, furrowing his brow as he added about triple the amount of recommended garlic the to the sauce, the way they both liked it.

“Yeah. Playing an instrument or something. And the sound of it...” Rey trailed off. The haunting, plaintive melody still reverberated somewhere deep inside her body. “It's hard to explain. It sounded...so sad.”

Finn reassured her as they shared the delicious meal, sitting together at her very, very tiny kitchen table. “It takes some time to settle into a new place. And it's only been one night. Maybe they were throwing a party.”

Rey wasn't convinced, but she broadened her smile anyway. They passed the evening in vibrant conversation, sparkling with in-jokes. She happily listened to the details of Finn and Poe's wedding planning and Rose's plan to start a DnD group. For the first time, with the sound of their shared laughter bouncing off the walls, the little apartment felt more like a place where Rey belonged.

As they hugged goodbye, Rey tried not to think about how this would be the last time she would see her friend for quite some time. It was a three hour drive out of the city. The fact that he made this surprise trip was incredibly heroic.

Still, the apartment seemed so quiet after he left. Rey changed into her pajamas and got ready for bed. She had her traditional class bright and early the next morning. If she found retirees daunting, how was she going to handle perfectly toned superhumans with leggings that cost more than her car payments?

Finn's encouragement made it easier for her to drift off to sleep with a relatively positive mindset, visualizing a successful class as if she could dream it into life.

She only dozed for a few hours when the music woke her.

This tune was deeper, more rhythmic. Pounding, maddeningly steady, like a throbbing heart. Where the previous song sounded like wailing, this song—still full of pain—sounded angry. Furious. Fury turned inward, tragic and caustic and uncontrollable. 

And loud. Rey's futon frame rattled against the wall. The trembling in her body couldn't be solely blamed on the vibrations. She clenched her hands into fists and squeezed her eyes shut. The music seemed to be coming from inside her skull, inescapable and awful.

Enough was enough. Rey leapt from the bed, pulled a hoodie over her pajama top, and slipped on a pair of canvas sneakers. She didn't bother to brush her wild hair or switch her jumping sheep-patterned fleece pajama pants for jeans. Scowling with determination, she stormed out of the apartment and stomped up the stairs.

There was only one door the music could be coming from. She knocked on it, three sharp raps. Again. She lifted her fist to pound once more when the door unexpectedly opened, only a crack. Whoever was inside had not bothered to turn off, or even turn down, the pulsing music within.

The rude man who had refused to hold the door open for her that first day peered out, the pale angles of his face bisected by the door chain. She recognized his wild dark hair, his black eyes, and his height—even with most of his body cloaked in darkness, she could tell he towered over her. She felt the first twinge of nervousness through her head-spinning rush of bravery.

“What is it?” A deep, hoarse, toneless voice.

“Turn down your music, please,” Rey hissed, straining to be heard over the din.

“I can't understand you.”

“Turn down your music!” Rey shouted.

The rude man shut the door. For a moment, a burst of indignant rage surged through Rey's chest as she assumed he had simply turned tail and ignored her. Then, finally—blessedly—the music stopped. The door opened again. Rey thought the man looked very tired. There were deep lavender shadows under his dark eyes.

“Is there a problem?” the man asked.

Rey took a moment to steady her breathing. Now that the awful music was silent, she could finally gather her thoughts. She put on a thin smile. “Hello. I'm Rey, and I'm new to the building. I moved into the apartment below you.”

The rude man said nothing. Rey stuffed her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, suddenly very aware she was wearing bright purple pajama bottoms with cartoon sheep printed on them and her hair was likely frizzed out around her head like a ridiculous halo.

“Maybe you're not aware of this, but when you play your music, it echoes right through the walls. I have to work early in the morning and I can't sleep because it's so incredibly loud.”

Another long, long beat of silence. Then: “No one's complained before.”

Rey smiled patiently, her teeth gritted. “Well, it's possible that nobody was living below you before. But I'm complaining now, because I have to work in the morning, and I can't sleep.”

“The music is my work.” How could anyone's voice be so completely devoid of even the barest smidge of emotion? It was like talking to an android. Rey's headache reappeared. “I'm a composer. Do you understand?”

A composer for what? Horror movies? Torture chambers? The bowels of hell? “I hope we can understand each other,” Rey said. Now her patience was really becoming threadbare. “I can't stop you from playing music. I'm only asking that you turn it down to a level that doesn't shake my bed while I'm trying to sleep.”

“Have you tried earplugs?” 

“My bed. Is. Shaking.” 

“I'm sorry to hear that,” the rude man said. He closed the door in her face. From inside his apartment, she heard, “Try sleeping on the floor.”

At least when the music started again, it was quiet enough to ignore.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey's Tuesday morning class proved to be good-natured, warm, and welcoming, making her feel rather guilty for assuming they would be snobs. An hour of stretches, poses, and inversions flew by. Rey felt herself truly enjoying her practice—the steadiness of her limbs, the stillness of her mind, the way the earth supported her body. A solid night's sleep had done her a world of good. As her students left the classroom, she could tell from the contented expressions on their faces that they found their own practices just as restorative.

If only the weather was so cheerful. A clear early morning sky gave way to dark, rumbling clouds by the time she exited the studio. As she reached the bus station, the sky bust open...just in time for Rey to watch her bus driving away, its glowing red taillights disappearing into the pouring rain.

In her nervousness as she prepared for class, she forgot to double-check the bus schedule—or bring an umbrella. Rain soaked her thin jacket and stuck her tank top and sports bra to her body. It would be a half-hour walk back to her apartment.

She trudged through the downpour, trying to distract herself by imagining taking a hot bath and wrapping herself in her fluffiest robe. The cozy image did little to make her forget the cold drops dripping relentlessly on her head.

“Miss?”

A deep voice startled her. She looked over her shoulder to see a looming figure holding a black umbrella.

“You said your name was Rey. I believe we're going in the same direction.”

Rey barely recognized the scruffy composer. He wore dark slacks and fitted gray linen button-up. The clean, modern lines accentuated the long, lean angles of his body. His wavy hair was sleepy back from his forehead, making his dark eyes stand out. In the weak, overcast sunlight, his eyes were more toffee-brown than black.

Her stunned silence made him smirk, and then the rude jerk she'd argued with last night was very recognizable. “Walk with me,” he said.

“I'm fine, thanks.” Rey quickened her pace. 

“Suit yourself.” Suddenly, the rain stopped drumming on her head and the deluge's roar softened to a whisper. The umbrella's shadow fell over her. “But I insist you take my umbrella with you. Consider it an apology.”

Rey stopped, turning to her neighbor. His smirk was gone, replaced by a grave, contemplative glower. He held the umbrella away from himself and over her—rain pattered on his shoulders and rolled down his nose.

“You're apologizing?”

“When we talked last night, I hadn't slept in a long time. I was—blunt.”

“That's one way of putting it.” The corner of Rey's mouth turned up in a skeptical smile. “You're getting absolutely soaked.”

“It doesn't bother me.” Rainwater plastered his dark hair to his head. “Just take the umbrella. I don't have time for this.”

He stood there, completely still, holding out the umbrella and staring down at her. The moment would have been comical if it wasn't so bizarre. Hesitantly, Rey reached for the umbrella handle, not taking her gaze from his face. Her fingers brushed against his surprisingly warm hand. The touch flickered in his eyes.

“What's your name?” Rey asked.

He was silent for a moment. He broke eye contact, looking somewhere past her shoulder. “Kylo.” His voice was choked and strange. 

“Kylo?” Rey said, incredulous, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. 

He pushed the umbrella handle into her palm. “Don't lose that,” he said, his usual clipped tonelessness taking over. “Bring it back to me when you can. You know where I live.”

He strode away on long legs, head bowed, rain dripping from his now-limp curls.

“Kylo!” Rey called after him, hurrying so fast she foolishly stepped into a puddle. “Don't be stupid! Let's walk together!”

But he was already too far ahead. He turned a corner and vanished.

In her apartment, Rey took the hot bath she promised herself. As she soaked in dried lavender and epsom salts, breathing in the fragrant steam and letting her body relax, she pored over the surreal encounter with her rude upstairs neighbor.

She wasn't sure if she should be touched that he attempted to apologize or annoyed by his absolute butchery of said attempted apology. One thing was certain—she couldn't get his odd, serious face out of her mind. She stepped out of the bath and wrapped herself in her bathrobe. Sitting on the edge of her futon, she toyed with her phone, her brow furrowed. Her messenger app was open, showing Rose's smiling icon—in Rose's profile picture, she was petting a llama at a petting zoo they visited together the previous autumn. 

Rey's thumb hesitated over the keyboard. She and Rose had been friends for years, but Rey—strange, quiet, focused Rey—had never been one for “girl talk.” There had never been any men she found interesting enough to distract her from yoga and her volunteer work at the Girl's Home. The whole thing felt so ridiculous. What was she supposed to write, anyway?

_I met this weird guy who lives above me and plays loud, terrifying music at two AM. And I think he's kind of..._

Kind of what? Infuriating? Bizarre? Incomprehensible?

Cute?

Even though Rey was alone in the apartment, her face burned red and her heart pounded. She turned the phone facedown and rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. It was the move. It had left her scatterbrained and stupid. That was the only explanation for daydreaming about a man who had done literally nothing but act mildly rude to her twice.

Kylo's black umbrella sat in the corner, leaning against the wall. 

_Let him come get it itself, if he wants it back that bad,_ a strange, petulant voice said in Rey's head. She flopped down on the futon and pulled a fuzzy blanket over her body, propping herself up in a nest of pillows that conveniently blocked the umbrella from her field of vision. She scrolled through her phone, looking for the most mind-numbingly pointless thing possible to watch on Netflix. That's what she needed—to shut her brain off. Maybe then it would reset and things would start making sense again.

That's when she heard it. A loud, startling—sneeze.

It came from upstairs. For a moment, Rey tried to pretend she had imagined the sneeze. Then another echoed from the upstairs apartment, even louder and more dramatic. Then the unmistakable sound of a hoarse, rattling cough.

Her gaze turned balefully towards the black umbrella in the corner. “Well,” she sighed as she climbed out of bed. “I guess we're doing this.”

Rey changed out of her bathrobe into a black blouse and jeans--an outfit that quite intentionally did not include any fleece pajama pants printed with sheep. She pulled her hair into a sensible bun.

Until that evening, Rey didn't know it was possible to go through the steps of making chicken soup from a can with a frown on her face. Making chicken soup had always been a calming activity for her, connected to fond memories of making it for herself on a snowy afternoon or preparing it for kids with the sniffles at the Girl's Home. Now, she went through the steps with an odd, fiery determination. She poured the hot soup into a reusable container and placed it in a grocery bag with a handful of random teabags, some cold medicine pills, and a sleeve of crackers. Before she trudged out of the apartment, she tucked the umbrella under her arm.

_Confusing gestures of kindness that no one asked for?_ Rey stormed up the steps to Kylo's apartment with a faint, determined smile. _All right. See how you like it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long gap between chapters! Thank you for being patient :)


End file.
